THE GRAND DESIGN

There’s a Bible verse in the book of Romans that has always intrigued me.  It’s Romans 1:19-20:

“what may be known about God is plain. . . because God has made it plain. . .  For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (when they say there is no God)”.

Before I knew Jesus, nearly 40 years ago now, I saw things differently.  I looked around me like everyone else and noticed the variety of trees, many of which changed color every fall.  I noticed the variety of birds, each with their own unique song.  I too saw and appreciated the seasons.  However, I never did SEE them the way I do now that Jesus has entered my life.

Now I see the beauty around me with eyes of faith, eyes wide open to the intricacies, variety, and uniqueness of creation.  Now I see shades of color I hadn’t noticed before.  Trees that are a yellow green in spring, deep green in summer and yellow, red and orange in fall.  I notice the different sizes, colors and songs of birds and can’t wait to spot them!  I revel over the bunnies, chipmunks and groundhogs that inhabited our yard.  In each and every thing now, I see the hand of Jesus, about whom the Bible says: “For by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth . . . . all things were created by Him and for Him. . . . and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17)

On Monday Jim and I were visiting our daughter and son in law in central Florida.  Since they were working, we decided to go to Sea World for the day.  We did the usual things, saw the Orca show, the seal show, the dolphin exhibit.  As usual, I was blown away by the genius of God!  

There is a group of inventors of a sort at Disney World.  They are called the Imagineers.  It’s their job to pool their collective creativity to come up with new rides, exhibits, and displays that will keep Disney World fresh.  Sometimes I think it would be fun to sit in on one of their meetings and throw out my own ideas, but I know that when it comes to creativity, I’m challenged.  

I was thinking though, that even if the Imagineers were brilliantly creative, to the point where the ideas just flowed out of them non-stop, there would probably come a point where they would exhaust their supply.   I actually saw evidence of this when I compared some things at Disney with things I had seen at Universal Studios and also at Sea World.  All three parks were doing similar things with entrance bracelets, seasonal passes, and fast access to rides and shows.  Each park works hard to try and come up with a new and fresh idea before one of the other parks does.  But many of those ideas are just variations on a theme.

In the Bible book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon said, “there’s nothing new under the sun”.  Eventually, when we run out of ideas, we begin looking around to see what everyone else is doing and we borrow one of theirs and put our own spin on it.  

 Not so with God.  When He made the world, He started with nothing and in the vastness of His greatness, He created myriads and myriads of creatures we could never have imagined.  Why?  To prove that He IS, that He is glorious, that He is God!  So that when we looked at the world around us, we would have no excuse for saying, “What God?”

Who but God could have come up with the mind boggling mammal we call the manatee?  And create it from SCRATCH???  These gentle creatures populate the waters here in Florida.  If you happened to be populating a body of water at the same time, you just might lose your lunch if a manatee swam up beside you.  

Also called “sea cows”, the adults are enormous, with broad tales and bodies that look as if they’ve been inflated with gas, so that a pin prick might send them flying like a deflated balloon.  Only the Great Imagineer could have designed something so awe inspiring!

And who but God would ever have thought of an animal with eight legs covered in suction cups and a defense system that squirts ink at its predators?  No think tank of human Imagineers could have come up with the octopus!

What about those serendipitous sea horses?  They are adorable!  With a perfect face just like a horse, and a tail like that of a monkey, who but God would think of them, and then MAKE them, IN MINIATURE?   

And then there is the “sea dragon”.   I didn’t even know such a creature existed until we went to Sea World.  If you’ve been to Disney World, then you may have seen the imaginary character of Figment.  I’m convinced the Disney Imagineers must have used the sea dragon as their model for him.  We can copy, but we can’t create out of nothing.  Only God can make the original “sea dragon”.

To me it is the most outlandish thing in the world to suggest that our world was created by chance, as the result of a big bang, or even evolution.  This kind of beauty and variety and intricacy doesn’t happen by chance!  

No, of this I AM convinced - the world “happened” by the grand design of Jesus, who created it for His glory and our enjoyment.  We just need eyes to SEE, not only the creation, but the Creator, to appreciate His Grand Design!